Il mostro è in tavola... barone Frankenstein

This was the first of 2 films made in quick succession by Paul Morrissey in Italy in 1973. Blood for Dracula was the other.

Flesh for Frankenstein was obviously made with it's tongue firmly in it's cheek. It's a step beyond anything Hammer attempted in this genre, especially regarding gore and dodgy accents!

Udo Kier and Arno Juerging are possibly the best comic duo to hit the screens since Abbot & Costello as the Baron and faithful sidekick Otto! Whether fooling around in the lab or scouting for suitable organs they never fail to raise a smile. Kier gets all the best lines, letting us know his views on gall bladders and his plans for the new race he is ..ehm.. putting together.

Monique Van Vooren is more sinister as the Baroness, who initially appears relatively normal, in comparison to her "husband" at least. However her eccentricities become apparent as the film goes on.

Joe Dallesandro is on screen a lot but his character doesn't contribute much to the plot. Presumably his name was used to garner publicity for the film in the US.

The Frankenstein kids take after their parents and are crucial to the twist at the end of the film. The young actors playing the kids do a good job.

The actors playing the Baron's works in progress don't have much to do, even when their characters are brought to life.

Certainly the film will not be to everybody's taste. There is plenty of gore and some dodgy sex scene sound effects. The scene showing the Baron's "interest" in the female creation and her innards pushes the boundaries a bit but it is too over the top to be anything more than comical. So sit back and enjoy this piece of 70's schlock horror.

Possibly the oddest re-imagining of the Frankenstein story ever made, Paul Morrissey's 1973 semi-avant-garde, satirical spoof is also one of the funniest, and most gruesome. Dr. Von Frankenstein (played by B-movie favourite Udo Kier) is obsessed with creating what he believes will become a master race of Serbians who will bend at his will. He locks himself away with his assistant Otto (Arno Juerging), manufacturing hideous creations from body parts. He creates a male and a female to give birth to the first of his new race, but he is frustrated and unsatisfied with the male's sexual urges. Von Frankenstein's wife/sister, meanwhile, is following her own urges with farmhand Nicholas (Joe Dalessandro), who is coincidentally the best friend of the doctor's latest victim.

One of the strangest pairings in cinema history, director Morrissey and producer Andy Warhol have certainly created an interesting piece of horror. For all it's rather sick moments of debauchery, it is actually quite impressive artistically. Filmed in Cinecitta in Rome (one of Federico Fellini's favourite film studios), the set design for Von Frankenstein's laboratory in vast and impressive. This approach works both for and against the film, as although it gives the film a grand, often operatic feel, the film can sometimes look like it's on stage. That said, Morrissey's ability to frame a shot is often spectacular, especially in the ultra-wide dinner table scene, where Von Frankenstein introduces his wife/sister to his fresh creations.

Yet sometimes the film can feel a bit confused. It works well just a straight B-movie, with plenty of the weird and gruesome on show to satisfy horror fans (given those fans are into watching sex with torso wounds). But the film isn't really funny enough to call itself a comedy, clever enough to call itself a satire, or pretentious enough to be avant-garde. All these different themes seemed to clash together and I never felt settled with what kind of film I was supposed to be watching. If that was the point, then well done, but it still doesn't make the movie into anything special.

Saying that, I did thoroughly enjoy 90 minutes in the minds of two strange characters that had a small, if fascinating, effect on cinema.

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To begin honestly, FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN isn't for all tastes. However, the film and brother, BLOOD FOR Dracula, are great treats to genuine horror movie buffs. Surprisingly, for some reason the latter, as offensive as the former was not listed as a 'Video Nasty'. These two films were made back to back (a la Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions) and by the same cast and crew and exploited Andy Warhol's name for distribution.

If you have a fondness for cheesy, funny and gory decadence, then you'll love this film. Plus Udo Kier is and Arno Juerging are great in their roles. The fabulous line – To know Death Otto, you first have to f**k life in the gall bladder – was a bloomer influenced by Last Tango in Paris, but was so funny, director (Paul Morrisey) left it in.

As a passing note, I remember seeing both Ace Ventura and Blade in the cinema for the first time and loudly saying 'It's UDO!' when he appeared.

This is clearly the superior of the two films that Paul Morrissey filmed at Cinecitta studios (Rome) during the early 1970s. It's the typical Frankenstein story with the Morrissey's spin on it.

And I suspect that it has a lot to do with Antonio Margheriti being involved since he is famous in Italian horror circles for the gore effects he brings to films. Especially the scene where the male monster (Srdjan Zelenovic) rips open his stomach sutures, exposing his organs in an act of suicide. Very anatomically correct.

Udo Kier is probably the best reason to see this film, however. His hammy acting skills are tops! His version of Frankenstein is so demented, I guess the German accent adds a lot to it. Usually it's an American or English actor who plays Frankenstein so having a real life German (speaking in English, of course) adds to the atmosphere.

And of course Joe Dallesandro's New York accent sounds totally out of place here, just as it did in BLOOD FOR DRACULA. He sounds like a male hustler hanging out in Times Square instead of an Italian stable boy

Also hideous is Monique Van Vooren as Baroness. Good gawd, the Dallesandro character must have been real hard-up in order to sleep with that old hag.

Still, it has decent atmosphere and the Criterion DVD uses a widescreen print that looks crystal along with production stills of the movie, secondary commentary track by Morrissey who has some revealing comments about the film, and some silly, pseudo-intellectual commentary by Maurice Yakowar that a trashy film like this doesn't deserve.

Worth seeing mostly for Kier's presence.

6 out of 10

Well. we can only speculate what Mary Shelley would have made of this! By the time it came to the early 1970's there was a peculiar trend in European genre cinema for erotic/sleazy Frankenstein films. Amongst others there was The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein and Frankenstein '80 – both from 1972 – so it can be not too much of a surprise that a year later came the king of this very specific sub-genre, the one and only Flesh For Frankenstein. It was famously produced by New York Pop artist Andy Warhol, along with the similar Blood For Dracula. But it's a far cry from Warhol's other art films and unsurprisingly his creative input was pretty negligible. It was filmed in Cinecittà studios in Rome and directed by Warhol acolyte, Paul Morrissey. But irrespective of who did what and why, the main thing about this one is that it's a bona fide trash classic of the very best kind.

Its blood and guts galore and transgressive sex all the way. But it's all presented in a camp manner that simply has to be seen to be believed. The acting ranges from insanely over-the-top (Udo Kier) to hilariously under-the-top (Joe Dallesandro). What makes it so very funny is that despite the sheer ridiculousness of proceedings everybody plays it deadpan straight. We have Kier fully committed and out of control as the Nazi-like Baron who dreams of making a new master race; Dallesandro is a local shepherd stud with a hilariously out of place New York accent – he seems more like a Times Square street hustler than a character from the early 19th century; then there is Arno Juering in a bewildering performance as the eye-popping Otto, assistant to the Baron; Monique Van Vooren makes an impression too as the Baron's over-sexed wife/sister; even the couples incestual offspring are memorably creepy, the little girl being the one and only Nicoletta Elmi who appeared in dozens of Italian horror and giallo flicks in the early 70's.

Flesh For Frankenstein was also noteworthy for being one of the members of the infamous video nasty list, which of course was a selection of movies deemed criminally obscene by the British authorities back in the early 80's. It's an example of an entry from this list where you sort of understand why it caused offence in the first place. Not only does it have a healthy dose of explicit gore – including a hilariously over-the-top finale – but it is wilfully transgressive in other outrageous ways with the brother/sister-husband/wife incest plot strand and the baron's necrophiliac behaviour with his zombie creations. Of course, all of this excessive content, funny performances and insane dialogue adds up to a must-see movie for anyone with a passing interest in Euro horror from the schlockier end of the scale. On top of all of this, it's actually a quite handsome looking film, which is perhaps unsurprising given its Cinecittà origins. Suffice to say that all of this adds up to a cult film, truly worthy of the tag. Its additionally well worth seeking out its sister film Blood For Dracula, which is slightly less psychotronic but equally indispensable.